The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said this week that more than $14.7 million will be awarded to 23 states under the Clean Vessel Act grant program this year. The first Clean Vessel Act awards were made in 1993. The agency’s Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program has since awarded more than $200 million to…more

A recent report from the National Climatic Data Center says 2012 saw 11 weather and climate disaster events apiece that caused losses exceeding $1 billion in damage. That makes 2012, which produced more than $110 billion in damage, the second-costliest year since 1980. The two major drivers of the damage costs in 2012 were Hurricane…more

NOAA Fisheries is seeking comments on a proposal to permanently adopt rules it instituted five years ago to protect North Atlantic right whales, including a 10-knot speed limit for vessels 65 feet or longer in waters where the whales gather in certain seasons. NOAA says the speed limit has reduced the number of ship strikes…more

Government-sponsored recovery efforts that followed the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are slowly accelerating, federal officials and coastal communities say. Billions in civil fines paid by BP remain undistributed as lawyers wrangle in court. States are still drawing up priority lists of projects for funding. And a total damage assessment of…more

Massachusetts attorney general Martha Coakley is suing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, alleging it using flawed science to restrict the fishing industry in the Northeast. Coakley told reporters Thursday that the government’s recent enforcement and regulation of the fish stock represents a “callous disregard for the well-being of New England fishermen,” according to Cape…more

Biscayne National Park dropped a controversial proposal to ban fishing across nearly 16 square miles of coral reef after vigorous opposition from anglers and members of Congress. The park, which encompasses southern Biscayne Bay, had proposed a no-fishing zone to help coral reefs recover from decades of heavy fishing that had devastated snapper, grouper, lobster…more

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is testing MyNOAACharts, a new mobile app that allows users to download NOAA nautical charts and editions of the U.S. Coast Pilot. The app, which is only designed for Android tablets for the testing period, will be released today, NOAA announced. MyNOAACharts, which can be used on land and…more

Dredging projects critical to navigation, one of several political priorities for the industry, took a step forward Wednesday when the U.S. Senate passed the Water Resources Development Act by a vote of 83-14. “The passage of the Water Resources Development Act today brings much-needed reforms to harbor maintenance funding,” Edward Wytkind, president of the Transportation…more

The Obama administration released this week its final plan for translating the National Ocean Policy into action. The plan focuses on improving coordination to speed federal permitting decisions; better managing ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources; developing and disseminating scientific information that local communities, industries and decision-makers can use; and collaborating more effectively with state,…more

Many commercial fishing stocks off the U.S. coast that were depleted by decades of overfishing are returning after a 1996 law ordered catch limits in a series of “painful but necessary steps to sustain and rebuild populations,” a newly released analysis on fish populations says. The analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council shows that…more